That's what ultimately makes our society turn. If we could get to a true StarTrek replicator, then I think we're off to a good start!
That's what ultimately makes our society turn. If we could get to a true StarTrek replicator, then I think we're off to a good start!
Regarding Italy:
We have social housing that is crippled by bureocracy and corruption, you have to wait years in line to get a flat, so I can't really say we guarantee that.
We guarantee education, but we couldn't guarantee the same (good) level of education to everyone yet. Also we don't guarantee post high school education. If you need to work because you're poor and you don't have time to pursue a degree, that's mostly your problem.
Food is not guaranteed either, although we have several monetary aids to partially reduce the issue.
Healthcare is guaranteed, and excluding waiting times that are a bit long, I can say that healthcare really worked well for us. Nothing is perfect, but nobody is left to die because of preventable disease. No matter how poor you are, you will be treated.
So I wouldn't say in Italy we ever experienced what I propose, just a tiny taste of it.
It's pretty hard to test that out, though, when one side of the political spectrum is so convinced it will happen that they devote a significant amount of political effort to making sure it happens, preventing us from ever finding out what a well-funded and run socialist experiment would look like in the US.
But it's false.
Vietnam works for example, it even handled covid much better than other turbo capitalist powers.
And every socialist experiment has been characterized by different approaches and circumstances.
Rather than a factual argument, it's more an uninformed generalization, that sounds too close to the propaganda we are pushed on by media/politicians.
Do you want a strong factual argument?
Despite their claims, not a single capitalist nation has managed to solve poverty. And they won't ever, because without poverty there can't be the hierarchy much needed to force people to behave like cogs into the capitalist machine.
For example, at the end of the current month I "spent" five chicken and twenty bushes of lavender (I live in the countryside :D) and acquired two dogs and fifty kilos of grain. Was that good? Can I keep doing the same thing next month, or should I change my "prices"?
Do not dismiss money lightly, it's far more important than you might think.
> Was that good?
Only you can tell. Has your quality of life improved? Do you have what you need to live well? Then it was good, otherwise not. Money won't help you at all to understand this. Only you can tell the value something has for you.
And I'm sure you do this already all the time. How many times were you advertised a great deal (in terms of price/product value) that you decided wasn't necessary?
That was you overriding the value money gives to something. Even though just looking at the price it seemed like a great deal, you realized that maybe you didn't need a third washing machine.